I don't think they've messed up so much as they haven't done enough. You can't customize anything...it's maddening. Gnome-panel could do just about anything you wanted it to, and even most of the third-party dock applications you could install were more configurable. Then they decide to push Unity on everyone, moving the window controls and menus and launchers and everything without including ways to customize or change things back...it's crazy. Yes, you can install and set up the old stuff, but that's arguably not something we should have to deal with.